About RSSing.com

This is a request to stop all tracking of http://piedyype.com/rss on your website and remove all existing material from PiedType.com

The code number you provided for this purpose is:

XVAxKivspaeWWmjXWy6k

To Pied Type readers:

Sorry to bother you with this. RSSing.com is probably picking up your blog’s RSS feed, too. Supposedly publishing the code number they gave me will stop it, but I’m not hopeful. They are like rebloggers, it seems, but they’re picking up every post from every blog they’re tracking. (And they don’t publish anything else.) And like reblogging, when the post is a photo, they get the whole thing. If nothing else, this is a publicity grab for them, having me publish something about them so they’ll take down my stuff — if they take down my stuff.

What really angers me here is that I got permission from some photographers to publish their work. Now RSSing has republished those posts without permission and that’s not okay.

I’m not sure how all this works. One’s RSS feed is meant to be a public feed, so it probably isn’t illegal to pick it up. But it sure seems shady to pick it up in its entirety and reprint it all. Of course, I could stop the RSS feed, but then I think no one would be notified in any way that I’d published something.

If any of you have dealt with RSSing.com or know anything about them, I’d love your input on this.

D’oh. Had to do another post because the first code had “timed out.” What I fear now is that I stopped the tracking of just one “channel.” And it looks as though they may consider each of my categories to be a different channel. I have 192 categories.

_________________

Update: June 23, 2014 — Using Whois, I managed to find an email address for someone at RSSing and sent them a polite takedown request. The letter was forwarded to someone else, who finally replied and said they would take down all my stuff from the back end, leaving only what existed in caches. As nearly as I can tell now with spot checks, they’ve removed all my posts.

I did a desultory search a couple of times, but decided I have better things to stress over. I DO get annoyed at the reblogs at sites where they do absolutely nothing but reblog, but that hasn’t happened for awhile (knock on wood).

I wouldn’t have known about them if they hadn’t showed up in my stats as a referrer. And no, I am not particularly grateful that they directed one reader to Pied Type. I’m curious though how they can publish any portion of my content without Google alert notifying me.

All I can tell is the link above, in the note to RSSing, gets the message “This webpage is not available.” But if I go to specific Pied Type categories on their site, like the photography link farther down in the post, they are still there. I’m sure the response to block one category with the code, is computerized, meaning I’d have to publish 192 separate posts with individually assigned codes, to get them all blocked. I doubt my letter requesting they all be taken down at once will even get a response. That would require a human. I haven’t figured out how to do a formal DMCA takedown request or if it’s even practical, since an RSS feed is out there for anyone to pick up.

Love the article! I just wrote one that is similar and it is about the same site. Wondering if you would share the email address with us that you used to submit the takedown request? I have submitted their code, but it fails every time I try to confirm.

This is a request that you remove from RSSing.com all content republished from my copyrighted blog PiedType.com.

A large number of the images that you’ve picked up from the feed are copyrighted by myself and others (from whom I have permission to reprint), and you are in violation of these copyrights.

I respectfully request that you take down everything from PiedType.com The site has some 192 categories, which you’ve converted to channels, and I am unable to publish that many individual automated RSSing codes/keys/requests on my blog.

Hallo! I have the same issue with rssing, many of my photos on google, links to rssing and not to my blog… and I really dont want that! Now I found your blog when I googled it, but I have some problems to understand it all in english. (I didnt find any swedish text about it) So I wonder:

The actual takedown seemed to come after oneworldsite got the request. You might try writing to one and send a copy to the other. I don’t know if you have to specify the number of categories. I would think it would be enough if you supply the exact URL of your blog. Good luck!

I already had to request my stuff taken down twice, and now I find it a third time. I don’t have any idea how to stop this. I emailed them, as you did, and they just tell me to fill out the godd*mn form. Their codes don’t work, and it doesn’t seem to matter anyway, because new channels just get created in its place. Help?

The above is everything I know about RSSing. If you can’t get any satisfactory response from them, you could always try a DMCA takedown request (I’ve never figure out exactly how to file one).

I got upset again a few weeks ago, thinking they’d started posting my stuff again. But when I looked more carefully I realized I was seeing listings for Google’s cached pages, which should disappear from the listing eventually. Are you sure you aren’t looking at cached pages?

Sorry to hear you’re having such a problem with them. I think their whole operation is pretty despicable.